January 28, 2022
https://www.biblicalresearchinstitute.com.au/
Copyright © BRI/IMCF 2021 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling, Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)
CAUTION: BRI/IMCF Yeshiva notes are not available to the general public. They are not for distribution. They are not for reproduction. The notes may also bear little or no resemblance to the actual audio or video recorded BRI/IMCF Yeshiva lecture.
Reading carefully through Hebrews 2.10-18 one cannot blissfully ignore the fact that a monumental PRICE was extracted from Our Lord Yeshua through his sacrifice and horrendous suffering in order to claim us as his own.
Unlike the apostle Paul whose writings are replete with the Salvific issues involved in the very basis of the self-emptying redemptive Work of the Messiah, on our behalf, the author of Hebrews rarely mentions any theme of redemption – which has been noticed and queried by a number of astute biblical commentators. What this unknown composer of the epistle does not fail to mention, however, is the enormous cost that Yeshua paid in order to secure our salvation. This preoccupation with the cost paid by Yeshua seems to be lurking in the back of his (or her) mind as the epistle unfolds and whoever wrote it seeks to find frequent golden opportunities to express the truth of the matter.
The celebrated Leon Morris recognises this emphasis and comments that “this is nowhere more forcefully put than in the reference to Him ‘who in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death… learned obedience by the things which he suffered’ (Heb 5:7f). This passage, referring primarily to the agony in Gethsemane brings out strongly the cost element in the process of salvation. Our redemption was not purchased cheaply. This thought is to be discerned in the statement that ‘it became him… in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings’ (Heb 2:10). Again, there is the thought that Christ suffered through temptation (Heb 2:18; and see 4:15), and it is said that He ‘suffered without the gate’ (Heb 13:12). In similar vein are passages stressing the humiliation of the incarnation; He was made lower than the angels for the tasting of death (Heb 2:9), He endured the cross despising its shame, and again, He endured the gainsaying of sinners (Heb 12:2,3). Thus from many directions we see a stress laid on the cost of our salvation, and this should be borne in mind in estimating the writer’s thought on redemption. Even when he is not using that exact term, he has the idea of cost that it denotes” (Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 1955, 1965, 40 Emphasis mine).
The ultimate COST was the life of the Messiah in order for those who believed in him to experience release and deliverance in a redemptive salvation. The author of Hebrews is speaking about a RANSOM being paid for the life of God’s chosen ones. The cost was the shedding of Christ’s BLOOD. Yet I have found, by accessing my hundreds of versions and translations of the Bible passage of Hebrews 9.12, the repeated term “eternal redemption” or occasionally “eternal deliverance” when the text ought to read “aionian RANSOMING.” Yeshua’s shed blood/death gained us an age-lasting “ransom.” This is a ransom that will last as long as the Salvation-oriented ages (or Salvific time-periods of God) will last.
QUESTION: How often do we stop and consider the love of God toward us? I mean, how regularly do we really contemplate and meditate on God’s awesome, unending, Grace-charged love? You see, there is a widespread belief in Christendom, in churchianity, as revealed in its doctrinal emphasis, that God’s love reached its pinnacle and culmination of expression in the giving of His own beloved Son on the bloodied tree of Golgoleth two millennia ago. But stop and think for a moment! John, the apostle, wrote of that event: “For God so loves the WORLD that he gives his uniquely begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not be perishing but be having everlasting life” (Jn 3.16 correct Greek tense).
But such a never-ending Self-emptying love as this, that gave the LIFE of His Son, as a tortured, bloody sacrifice, was entirely for the WORLD – and, yes, there can be no argument against the proposition that we ourselves were once an integral part of that hostile, rebellious, and darkened humankind.
Yet of us it is written, by the same John who wrote the Gospel: “Unto him that loves us, and released us from our sins AT THE COST of his own blood…” (Rev 1.5).
This is not a love that spent itself richly in the horrendous events of that Passover day so many centuries past. This is a love, brethren, that is present, and ongoing, and entirely sacrificially salvific. The Greek really should be translated as “who keeps on loving us.” God emptied Himself for His enemies in the death of His Son. What then, must God’s love be for those He calls, no longer His enemies, but His friends?
“…and released [loosed] us from our sins AT THE COST OF His own blood” (Rev 1.5).
“At the cost of…” Here was a ransom paid. Notes Robert Mounce, concerning this phrase, “It is used in the Hebraic sense of denoting a price. The ransom paid to redeem the faithful was the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ” (R. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, [The New International Commentary on the New Testament], 1977, 71).
We are most certainly speaking of a ransom, which the unknown author of Hebrews seems intent on communicating to his/her Jewish readers. Indeed, Hebrews 9.14 which is commonly read in English versions as “redemption” is actually from the Greek lutrosis – specifically meaning RANSOMED. Yes, it is a PRICE – a price that leads to a redemption – but it is not specifically “redemption”: the intent and inference is foundationally that of a RANSOM. If we do not get the Greek intention of a word correct we end up losing our grasp on a very fundamental doctrinal FACT concerning the enormous Self-sacrificial kenotic act carried out by Our Lord Yeshua on our behalf – for us.
I did locate some translations of Hebrews 9.12 in my library which conform to the truth more fully. Consider the following:
“It is his own blood, not the blood of goats and calves, that has enabled him to enter, once for all, into the sanctuary; THE RANSOM HE HAS WON LASTS FOREVER” (Ronald Knox, The Holy Bible: a Translation from the Latin Vulgate in the Light of the Hebrew and Greek Originals, 1945, 1955, 1961 Emphasis mine).
The Jehovah’s Witnesses actually got something right. “He entered, no, not with the blood of goats and of young bulls, but with his own blood, once for all time, into the holy place and obtained everlasting ransoming” (Hebrews 9.12 The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, 1969, 986).
Chrysostom, speaking on the Pauline statement in Romans 3.24 to the effect that we “are declared righteous by his Grace through the release by the ransom paid by Christ Jesus” comments “And he said not simply ‘ransoming’ but ‘ransoming away’ so that we no more come again into the same slavery.” The same view of the cost paid by the Lord Yeshua is on the lips of the writer of Hebrews. It is the ransom that is on his mind.
PAYING A RANSOM
The Greek word lutron means “paying a ransom.” This is what John is stating in his phrase “at the cost of” Yeshua’s life (Rev 1.5). It appears in a number of respects that both John and the writer of Hebrews have a lot in common theologically in respect of the notion of the ransom which was paid by Christ for us.
And it is at this juncture that the truth about the ransom becomes so pertinent and informative.
Scholars argue back and forth as to the recipient who was paid, and if there indeed was one. This is due to the fact that no mention is made in the biblical revelation as to the identity of the recipient. Conservative scholars try to de-emphasise the mere mention of lutron as possessing no real force in itself (See Dr Ken Chant, Great Words of the Gospel, 1991, Lesson 3, 7). But both John and his Jewish compatriot who penned Hebrews had other words they could have used in Greek, if they did not really mean “ransom,” but they nevertheless chose to utilise lutron and lutrosis respectively.
To whom was that ransom paid? Let me answer! It was paid to the Dark Lord who held us as his own property and in his own personal bondage as a result of our sins and iniquities. We have all been psychologically bound by fears of one sort or another, including the “fear of death” (Heb 2.15). This would imply that in some manner both Yeshua the Son of God, and the Dark Lord, had similar levels of legal administrative authority (to say the very least).
But could this indeed be the case?
Listen! It was understood by the primitive Messianic believers in Yeshua that the Messiah was to pay a PURCHASE PRICE or RANSOM for the freedom of the slaves of the Dark Lord. Matthew Levy understood the truth of the matter when he noted:
“Even as the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a RANSOM [Gk. lutron] for many” (Mt 20.28).
Mark, penning Peter’s Gospel, also saw that this was the case:
“For even the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a RANSOM [Gk. lutron] for many” (Mk 10.45).
And, so did Rav Shaul (Paul):
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Messiah Yeshua; Who gave himself a RANSOM [Gk. lutron] for all, the testimony concerning which is to be seen in strategic seasons having a unique character of their own” (1 Tim 2.5,6 Greek).
And NOW for the obvious question which ought to be on everyone’s lips… why did Messiah Yeshua have to pay a price for our ransom?
WHY DID MESSIAH HAVE TO PAY A PRICE FOR OUR RANSOM?
“And you shall make two cherubim of gold, of beaten work shall you make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat. And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on the two ends thereof. And the cherubim shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be” (Ex 25.18-20).
When we consider the contents of the Sinai Torah, and especially the symbolism and typology attached to the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant, we can draw from these biblical examples of God’s will certain fundamental illustrations of application and surprisingly each of these assessments (that of the tabernacle and the ark) can have unlimited planes or vistas of understanding in lessons applicable for us today.
Concerning the Ark: The Ark represented the throne of God in heaven, and covering the Ark were TWO anointed cherubim. These two cherubs in Jewish rabbinic thought were known to be TWINS. These two cherubs – and only these two – are made of gold out of the mercy seat itself. “And he made two cherubim of gold, BEATEN OUT OF ONE PIECE… out of the mercy seat made he the cherubim.”
Note that these creatures were not angels. They were not gods (elohim). They were not eternal. As cherubs they were creations of Yehovah. They were cherubs. And they were “heavenly twins.”
Why were the heavenly twins made out of the very essence that represents God the Father? My question lays a foundation that is PURELY SPECULATIVE in (and by) its very nature. Let us consider the Ark — BEYOND the images of the cherubim.
This fact that the heavenly twins are reproduced out of Yehovah shows they were both “pro-created” out of his own being – emanations of His “firstborn” of ALL creation and of ALL glory! Emanations, not creations!
In my own rabbinic comprehension there may well be much more to these images than the representation of cherubim. Orthodox and neo-Orthodox rabbinic authorities also wonder if these two cherubs may well be representations of Yehovah in His dual Dream-nature of Light and Darkness, the two sides of the mystical “Cosmic Tree.”
They as images of ONE golden formation reveal their eternality with the Father as Being of ONE Spirit of the Mind of the Eyn Sof (the Boundless Uncreated Infinite), God’s THOUGHTFORMS themselves but in differentiated categories of “good” and “evil” (Isa 45.7).
We find, as we consider the implications of my question – again, based on sheer speculation – that we are back to the central BRI/IMCF doctrine of “the two hands of God.” Not only so, but notice something else about these twins.
“And he made the mercy seat of pure gold… and he made two cherubim of gold, beaten out of ONE PIECE made he them, on the two ends of the mercy seat… out of the mercy seat made he the cherubim” (Ex 37.6-8).
They were made out of beaten gold. Their character was hammered into shape!
IF we can shapeshift our thoughts into a logical conclusion (and remember that we are still speculating) the Logos, it seems, had a Vessel: a negative brother!
You see, there can be no light, without darkness. No Saviour, without sin. No good, without evil. No tomorrow, without a yesterday. No yin, without a yang. The Ark which represented purity and sinlessness contained the broken Torah – the ten commandments in shattered pieces.
Now follow me carefully here for I have not espoused these views since September 2, 2008. But on Yom Kippurim (plural) – the day of Atonements (plural) – two IDENTICAL goats were chosen – one for the Lord Yeshua (which is sacrificed to atone for our sins – Lev 16.9) and the other is the Azazel goat (the goat for departure or complete removal –Lev 16.10), representing haSatan, the DARK Lord, the Adversary who additionally appears as an “Angel of Light.”
Both are chosen as identical goats and it took lots cast over them to differentiate them from one another. That’s how closely identical they are in appearance.
This similarity was even outworked historically, as I have demonstrated before in other lectures, in the trial of Our Lord Yeshua before Pontius Pilatus, Procurator of Judaea.
Before the Jewish people Pilate presented both Messiah and Bar Abbas. One died for the sins of the people and the other was set free. Yeshua was the Son of the Father. Bar-Abbas means “son of the Father.” They were both “sons of the Father.” But ONE was the ATONEMENT, and the OTHER was the AZAZEL. Not only is this the case, some ancient mss include the name “Jesus Barabbas” – Yeshua bar Abba.
Was – IS – the DARK Lord the TWIN brother of Yeshua? Remember that when God created light he also created darkness (Isa 45.7). Remember that the two cherubim were created as ONE piece. The Jewish traditions inform us that the Messiah was IN the Mind of God the Father BEFORE Creation which is verified by John who wrote “In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God. The same was in the beginning with God” (Jn 1.1,2).
Clearly, the Devil was also in the creative Mind of God prior to the Big Bang, for God is not caught accidentally by either chance or by the results of chaos. The Garden of Eden was a set-up and the plan of God is precisely WHAT we are witness to each and every day of our lives. Christ was never a contingency plan, a mere “provision” provided just in case something went wrong in the delivery of the script in Adam and Eve’s decision-making process.
Is this idea of HEAVENLY TWINS, one perfect and positive and the counterpart evil and negative, to be substantiated by Scripture? Is it clearly revealed to be the truth of the Sacred record? No, it isn’t. It is one of those areas which remains a mystery to us, forever hidden in the Mind of God. We are, however, allowed to speculate into the mysteries of God. It enables us to expand the parameters of our ignorance of the Word of God contained in the biblical revelation.
WHAT IS IMPORTANT IN ALL THIS
Why has it been important for us to learn anew what sin is? Let me tell you. We needed to be reminded of what sin is, and what the ransom involved, precisely because the people of God at the End of Days have TWO THINGS IN COMMON, and they are identified as belonging to God the Father as a result. Notice it now.
Those who have finally overcome the Antichrist and his global Satan-energised false value system by the blood of the Messiah (Rev 12.11), are clearly identified as the “remnant” who are “[1] keeping the commandments of God and [2] possessing the testimony concerning Yeshua” (Rev 12.17).
This is so paramount a revelation from the Spirit of God that this insight is repeated twice, with a slight variation in theme. “Here is the endurance of the saints: here are they [1] who keep the commandments of God, and [2] the faith of Yeshua” (Rev 14.12).
God’s people at the conclusion of the present evil age are found “keeping the commandments of God.” They also possess “the testimony” and “the faith of Yeshua.” When he came the first time, Yeshua declared, “I have not spoken of myself. The Father who sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak” (Jn 12.49,50). He added: “He that loves me not, keeps not my sayings: and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s word who sent me” (Jn 14.24). Clearly, this unison in thought is further buttressed in the statement of Messiah, “I and my Father are One” (Jn 10.30).
The Father and the Son are ONE. They have always been ONE. The “keeping of the commandments” of God is the illation of “not sinning.”
As the curtain goes up on the final act in the drama of the ages when the Antichrist walks the earth, energised by the spirit of Satan, those who oppose his activities are characterised as observing all of the commandments of God. This includes the fourth. Any church, denomination or community that keeps and teaches the observance of only nine of the commandments, while they overlook or ignore the fourth – the Sabbath commandment, the “test” commandment – is not a church, denomination or community of God which is growing into the full stature of the Messiah. It is falling far short of God’s expectations of them (and of humanity). Difficult statement to make, but one that is entirely factual.
The Jewish followers of Our Lord Yeshua – who were the recipients of the Epistle to the Hebrews written by an unidentified writer at a time just prior to the Roman invasion and Jewish War – thought they were living in the last days of human civilisation. They were 2000 years out in their understanding of the prophetic timeline. But this is what makes Hebrews so RELEVANT for us today. Nero Caesar – the original Antichrist – perished at the hands of a Messianic Jewish Christian two millennia past, but the final figure of the Antichrist who will perish at the hands of Our Lord Yeshua at his advent, is due on the stage of history in the very near future.
Certainly, and without any doubt, Messiah’s unleavened life was given as a ransom for every man and woman and child on this earth – and as a means to reconcile the entirety of the universe back to God the Father. This is assuredly NOT speculation. It is our truth as Messianic believers who have been saved into all THAT Yehovah God IS.
MY God, and YOUR God, the LIVING God YEHOVAH of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov is not the proverbial “Local Village Idiot” as portrayed in Protestant circles nor is He the “Fast Fading Smile of a Cosmic Cheshire Cat” as advocated by Roman Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox. MY God is alive and well and is decidedly and sovereignly in charge of the entirety of the universe. Not only so, but in His superintendence, HaShem’s character is one of Salvific Grace, and unconditional, unlimited Love.
Brethren, I teach nothing new but all things original.
Would to God more of our students would take time out to research and to study not only their Bibles but along with their Bibles study the enormous accumulation of articles and lectures collected over a period of almost 50 years that are located in our educational section of the BRI/IMCF educational Boards.
After all, THIS is absolutely what Yehovah desires of all of us:
“Make an effort to studiously show yourself approved [tested by trial] unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, correctly analysing and skilfully partitioning the word of truth” (2 Tim 2.15).
“In the inexpressibly sublime and wonderful fact that God gave the sacrifice for man’s sins, the Christian faith parts company with all the ethnic and purely human religions which through the ages have risen and flourished on the earth. In all the human religions, without exception, it is man who pays and pays a thousand years; it is the boldest warrior of the tribe that faces the dragon; it is the fairest maiden offered as a sacrifice; and it was a man, Prometheus, who was bound to the rock forever with the vultures upon him. Strangely enough, in that latter myth, the sentence was eternal and could be lifted only when some immortal consented to die in Prometheus’ place, thus providing pagan testimony to the spiritual truth that [a ransom for redemption] must come from [outside] mankind. But it is precisely in this business of “Who pays?” that the unique superiority of Christianity appears; FOR IN THE BIBLE IT IS GOD WHO PAYS IT ALL” (James Burton Coffman’s Commentaries on the Bible (Hebrews, 1984) – Notes on Hebrews 2.17 Emphasis mine).
How often do we overlook, ignore, and miss important words in our reading of the Bible?
Yes indeed! B’ruch HaShem… it is Our Lord Yehovah who pays it all. That, my friends, is GRACE.
THIS CONCLUDES THE CURRENT LECTURE